January 29, 2006	Sunday	Zilhaj 28, 1426

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ISLAMABAD, Jan 28: Secretary-General of the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Jahangir Badar on Saturday said there had been no contact between the government and the party since March 2005 and that the party was waiting for a proper time to launch its anti-government movement.

Speaking at a “Dialogue” programme of the National Press Club here, the PPP leader refused to divulge the details and said he could not make further comments on the “nature and level of the contact.”

“One thing I can say that the contacts were always initiated by the government and not by the party,” he added.

Mr Badar said the PPP had become a symbol of struggle for democracy. The party has been fighting against those hatching conspiracies within and outside the party to damage democracy. He said the PPP was ready to cooperate with all those democratic forces which wanted to continue struggle for true democracy in Pakistan.

In reply to a question as to why the PPP had not made any effort to launch the anti-government movement, he said the PPP was not afraid of it, but a suitable time was imperative for this purpose. He said the party did not want to launch the movement at this stage as it feared that it might be “hijacked by extremists or terrorists.”

Mr Badar said the PPP believed in “consensus politics,” adding that late Bhutto had achieved consensus by holding discussions with groups of students, lawyers and politicians before signing a pact with India in 1972 and at the time of the passage of the 1973 Constitution. He said the PPP still believed in the slogan of ‘Roti, Kapra aur Makaan.’

Mr Badar said the PPP was struggling against a nexus of “feudal lords, capitalists and military generals” who had monopolized the country’s power structure.

In response to a question, he said the party wanted early general elections in the country but the rulers were incapable of holding free and fair polls, which was evident from the recently-held local government elections.

About the rift in the party’s Azad Kashmir chapter, he said those party MLAs who had been suspended by him on the disciplinary ground should have appealed to the party chairperson, Benazir Bhutto, instead of sending resignations to her. He said the resignations of the party’s suspended MLAs had also been handed over to him by the party chairperson and these had no importance.

He said Barrister Sultan Mehmood should remember the past when the “uncle group” tried to put pressure on the party leadership.

In response to a question regarding internal democracy in the party, Mr Badar claimed that the PPP had the best internal democracy among all the political parties.